


Story of my Life

by CabbitAndTheWeasel



Series: It's Personal [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Father-Daughter Relationship, Father-daughter issues, Gen, IRL, Self-Esteem Issues, adulthood is scary kids, growing up is scary, introverted person, personal issues, single parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-21 00:01:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9521825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CabbitAndTheWeasel/pseuds/CabbitAndTheWeasel
Summary: A young woman sits alone and thinks of her role in the world as an adult despite knowing deep inside she's a failure at it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have issues...Sometimes when life gives me a sucker punch to the face I know that if I bottle it up it'll just fester, so these drabbles are mostly just me venting my person problems in the form of unedited stories that will probably not make sense.

She sits up in her bed on the other side of the trailer, knees bent up to her chest as she stares blankly at her bed spread. The thick tension rolling through the small metal and wood home, through the doors and hallway to choke the only two residences in heavy negativity.

The stress she always felt, deeply rooted inside her that made her stomach drop, her organs churn, her brown eyes prickle with anxious tears she didn't want to shed. Because if she cried, she would sob and she knew sound carried in these thin trailer walls as she listened closely to the heavy footsteps in the kitchen and the clack of a plastic cup hitting the counter. She didn't want her father to hear. He was pissed enough as it was with her. She didn't want him stomping down the hall and knocking on her door to see what was wrong. Because if he did, she wouldn't be able to hide it. The stress, the fear, the anxiety, and the complete and honest truth that she doesn't really know what she's doing in this world.

She doesn't want to admit it to him. She wants to be strong. She needs to be strong. She has to be able to stand on her own to feet and act like the god damn twenty something she already is because that's what he has been expecting of her. To grow up and somehow know just what she has to do, know what questions to ask, get done what needs to get done, and put herself together. Like the adult he was, like she was supposed to be.

But how was she suppose to tell the man that she respected so much in the world, the single father that raised her to be a productive member of society that she had no idea what she was even doing? How was she suppose to just come out and explain that she didn't know; that she didn't understand how to act her age and put her shit together? That she makes crappy decisions thinking everything would turn out ok as long as she followed her gut or did as she always had and followed the flow.

The woman sitting on her bed barely breathed as she heard her father cough all the way in the living room. She only exhaled in quite relief when the TV turned on and she could hear music playing clearly in the background. She squeezed her eyes shut and begged for the prickle in her eyes and blurry vision to go away. She was being ridiculous. Every time he raised his voice it was like a trigger for her eyes to betray her usually calm looking demeanor.

It was all a facade. Always a facade. She had never been able to express herself clearly in words. She hated vocalizing her problems to people, she didn't want to seem like a crybaby, or selfish. Her father was rarely a selfish man so she shouldn't be either and everyone says she takes after him so she had to set an example.

Be the daughter that doesn't fail.

You can't be your sister, so be your father.

Act well behaved, always listen to those older to you, show your respect.

Be sweet, don't do weird things.

Work towards the goals you set yourself to.

* * *

 

It was easier as a child. She could easily slip into that mask of 'mature for her age' or 'she's smart because she's so quite' that other people assumed of her without question. She didn't mind it. It was ok because that made her feel good about herself. They thought she was a good student and a smart person because of how she acted and not who she was trying to emulate…or not become.

Oh, please don't become your older sister she would tell herself. She hated to disappoint her father.

In high school she recalled acting as her father's daughter was starting to put a strain on her. He would comment about her weight when she would benge of sweets, tell her she would get fat like her sister. She would nod, scurry off to Ashlie's house or bad into the confines of her bedroom. Her weight would never increase passed 115 lb, in fact, the anxiety often led her weight to fluctuate between 110-115. She never told her dad it was practically impossible for her to even reach 120 lb simply because her metabolism and stress issues wouldn't let her. Her friends always thought that was a low blow to a teenage girl who already suffered low self-esteem. She let it pass though, always tired to brush it under the rug because it was the one thing she knew would never happen, she ate like a bird already.

And when asked about moving to Florida she agreed full heartedly because dad wanted to leave. He hated the trailer park they lived in, he hated the people and the memories.

He hated her mom, he hated her sister. He always says he loved her sister, but a part or her always felt he was lying to her and himself. Her sister was a hard one to love nowadays.

She agreed, she left her friends, her family, and her memories, her home, to keep watch over her father so he could take care of his parents when they weren't doing so good. Dad needed a change of location, and no matter how miserable and alone it made her feel she would follow him. Because she loved her father and wanted to protect him from his own negativity. She wanted to keep him grounded and to remember mom wasn't a bitch like she knew he thought she was. He needed someone to lighten his load because everything was hard and life was full of stress for their two person family.

Florida was horrible to both of them. Dad could never hold a steady job and her grades dropped dramatically from A's and B's to C's, D's, F's, she had never had an F in her life.

She didn't like finishing the last half of eighth grade at a school where teachers were oblivious to the harassment she received in a reading class she was even suppose to be in, she had a higher reading level than this remedial shit she why the hell did they lump her in with the trash making lewd remarks of doing her in the back seat of his moms van when the rest of the students around her snickered and she sneered.

If it wasn't that it was the rude comments on her questionable sexuality. Seriously? Did it matter if she was a lesbian or not just because she had no guy friends? There was a god damn reason for that. None to the little pea brain sized boys in this state were worth befriending. None.

High school was no better. She kept to herself and a total of seven friends as she just spiraled down into her own personal abyss of depression. She lost touch with her friends from where she grew up, her friends here were nice and they made her laugh, but she would talk about all these horrible feelings of entrapment she felt. Like the only places she was ever able to go was school and her grandparents home. Or if there was a celebration, her relatives that also lived in the area.

Sure, they were family, but they never felt like family to her, she could barely remember any of their names after a year of living there and she felt too ashamed to ask them now.

Thinking of family always made her think of the people she left behind Ashlie, her neighbors, her mother, Jessie and her mother, Megan, Tiffany, She left her childhood pet with her sister who her dad gave the trailer to. Those people were her family, those were the people she could laugh and be free with. To get serious and be selfish and talk about everything that bothered her about her life.

In Florida, her whole world was school and home, in her bedroom or on the computer. Sometimes, her life consisted of just her and the contemplative thoughts holding a knife gave her.

The move back to her hometown broke the near constant shadow and weight that had engulfed her. She felt like herself again, surrounded by the people she loved more than herself.

Things were the same, but different though we all grew up and changed. And some of that change didn't help her readjust so well into the familiar yet damaged home walls.

She was sure the dark shadows still followed her, she still had moments were she would look at a knife but knew deep down she would just suffer through herself appointed job of being her father's daughter because she was a coward. She feared pain and couldn't bring herself farther than wondering if she just quit while she was ahead.

* * *

The woman stretched her legs across her bed and brought a tissue to her runny nose. She wanted to keep the noise she made to a minimum.

It was moments like these she just wanted to give up trying to act the part of the 'daughter that was raised right' she wanted to rebel, act selfish, like a bitch, scream at her father, cuss like the sailor she was around her friends and just break free from the restrictions she set around her throat to keep her emotions in check.

But she knew the restraints would never break. Bend a little maybe, but never release all the pent up furry and fear, and deepest thoughts. Because she had a job to do. She was her father's guardian. The one who finally got her father to stop holding that grudge over the one woman who regrets with all her heart that she broke his, the one who kept him thinking it was never as bad as he made things out to be, who listened to his complaints about herself and about people, the one who became his pride and joy to be the only one in their broken family to graduate high school and achieve acceptance into a community college.

The adult who wasn't really an adult now. Stuck at an impasse because despite everything she tried to do for herself to keep her sane and restrained and calm and not depressed for the sake of keeping up her father's approval, she still fails. She's still under the constant scrutiny of the over barring man her father can be, the one that blames her for the mistakes she doesn't mean to make, the one who he snaps at first when he's having a bad day, and the one who, nevertheless keeps her mouth shut. She stays silent and lets him yell at her for her short comings, lets him compare her to the older sister that failed at being an adult first, lets him vent and vent and hides that fact that deep down, despite the impassive mask she always puts on her heart is breaking. Ever word of negativity she takes and locks away inside her as if to hope it's one less negative thought stopping her father from being happy with the life he's built and the friends he's finally made. And when she is safely tucked away in her bedroom with the door closed she contemplates if she will ever be the adult she hopes to be someday and what she's doing wrong now. Because clearly, she still has a lot of things to learn.

 


End file.
